


A Town Called Bury

by RunawayCaboose



Series: Bury Me Here [1]
Category: Sing Street (2016)
Genre: Disreality, M/M, Magic, Surrealism, Unexplainable Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 01:15:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10232396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RunawayCaboose/pseuds/RunawayCaboose
Summary: Conor moves to a Bury with his things shoved in cardboard boxes and a hope for the future, but books that aren't his start to turn up in his boxes and he's not sure if time moves in this town, so how could there be a future? It's a strange town full of strange people who can do strange things, and Conor learns not to question it.





	

Honestly, Conor would be lying if he said that the name of the town didn’t play a part in his decision to move there. Sure, it was a nice town and all, small and cozy and weirdly high fences, but it was most definitely the name that sold him on the move.

“Welcome to Bury.” The moving man says behind him as Conor starts to take out dishtowels from a cardboard box that he could’ve sworn had books, not towels, but oh well. He’s not that organized.

“Thanks.” Conor says, smiling, turning around with towels in his arms. “Do you know why it- Oh.” The man is gone, Conor’s front door left open, filtered light pouring in through the overcast sky and onto Conor’s floor. Conor walks to his porch, looks around, the man is nowhere to be seen and his van is gone too, not moving up or down the street. “Strange.” Conor murmurs, returning inside to keep unpacking.

Most of his boxes seem to be in order which is great, he’s heard enough horror stories about movers breaking your stuff (strangely, not any about movers being able to disappear in a split second). Though, when he’s unpacking his books, he finds a lot that he can’t remember buying, can’t remember reading, but there they are, in the bottom of the box. He shrugs and leaves them in the box, vowing to take them to a thrift store or the library at some point because if he can’t remember reading them, they can’t be all that great.

It’s a strange town, it really is. Conor lives off the groceries he brought with them for two weeks and during the day, he walks around, tries to get to know his new town, talks to his neighbors and fellow residents of Bury.

He learns so much, things he swears aren’t true, but he can’t find anything to disprove them. Like how the lady sitting in her rocking chair tells him never to stay up until sunrise, that sunrise will never come. She tells him that it’s always cloudy, except for three p.m. on Mondays when it rains for seven minutes and Saturday night, eight twenty one, where you can see the sun just before it slips below the horizon.

Conor mentions this lady when he talks to his neighbor, talking about her white hair and shriveled hands and old voice. His neighbor smiles at him.

“She talked to you?” He asks, nearly incredulous. “She normally doesn’t talk to anyone, we’d given up on her fifty years ago.” Conor decides not to question it. Conor decides not to question a lot of things in this town. Most things. He just supposes that Bury is not the town for questions.

So he doesn’t question the way his neighbor leaves damp footsteps on the sidewalk even though it’s Wednesday and hasn’t rained since Monday, like that woman said. He doesn’t question the little girl that walks by his house three times a day, clutching an orange balloon that’s lacking a string in her arms. He doesn’t question the tiny hole in the sidewalk, barely a quarter of an inch across, that never seems to be deeper than the oceans. He doesn’t question how every time he walks by that box of books, there just seem to be more and more and more.

He just accepts it after the first week and a half. This town is strange, the people are strange, the roads are strange, but he doesn’t hate it. He rather likes it, actually.

Conor does take the books to the library eventually at the end of two weeks when his milk carton is nearly empty and there’s no more cereal and no more eggs. He carries the box of books down the street, nodding at the girl with the orange balloon who smiles at him, showing her rows and rows of sharp teeth, bone white and framed against red gums.

The library is small, the librarian behind the desk is the only person who’s in it and she glances up from her book as he sets the box on the counter.

“Hi, I was wondering if you take donations?” Conor asks, smiling. He tries to smile at everyone in Bury.

“Hell yeah we do!” She nods, enthusiastically, putting her own book down. She’s young, very young, maybe nineteen or twenty, her glasses are slipping down her nose. “What are they?”

“I’m not so sure.” Conor admits. “Apparently I brought them with me when I moved, but I don’t remember ever having owned one.” The girl leans over the box, picks up one of the books and examines it.

She drops it like it burned her, closes the box quickly.

“You have to keep these.” Her voice is urgent. “You have to keep them, okay? Keep them. Or, better yet, take them to Eamon. Eamon will take care of these and don’t open this box until he gets them.”

“Are they safe in the box?” Conor asks, looking at the thin cardboard warily. She nods.

“Yeah, of course, they’re not going to escape or anything. Just let Eamon open it whenever you get around to seeing him.” She instructs and Conor nods, slowly. “Oh, you’re new here, I should’ve known. But when you’ve lived for as many years as I have, you can be forgiven for forgetting who some people are.” Okay, so she’s definitely not twenty. “Eamon owns the shop two streets over, only shop in town, so I guess you’ve got to go there sometime. Anything else? You’ve got any town related questions or whatever?”

“Uh, yeah, I do, actually.” Conor pulls the box back across the counter towards him. “Why’s this town called Bury?” Her face darkens.

“Oh, we don’t talk about that. We never talk about that. I wouldn’t ask anyone else either.” Her voice is dark, deepened, but then she smiles and the darkness that seemed to gather disappears. “Maybe check the history section, second shelf right there.”

Conor leaves the box on the counter and follows to where she pointed. Sure enough, there’s a book with ‘Town History of Bury’ written in black on its spine. He pulls it out, opens it up, flips through a few pages. Almost every word is blacked out, gone over in ink and unreadable. The only word that escaped the inking over is the word ‘stay’, appearing over and over and over again. Conor shuts the book and puts it back on the shelf. He decides to just leave.

Conor carries the box of books to the shop that the librarian said Eamon owned. It’s in a small building and a bell above the door rings once when he walks in. There’s a man behind the register who looks like he’s about Conor’s age, but Conor isn’t trusting appearances any more.

“Hi, are you Eamon?” Conor greets him, carrying the box up and setting it down.

“Yes? Who are you?” Eamon asks back, furrowing his eyebrows. “You’re new, right?”

“Yeah! And I’m Conor. I’ve got this box of books for you…?” Conor trails off, hoping Eamon won’t take this weirdly or not understand what he means. “The librarian told me to take them to you and let you open the box.”

“Well, put it up here, then.” Eamon taps the counter and Conor bends down, lifting the box to where Eamon wanted it. Eamon pulls open the box, looks at the books for a second, then closes it. “Yeah, I think I’ll be keeping these.” He picks it up and puts it behind the counter. “Is there anything else you need?”

“Actually, I need some groceries, which I think I can get here.” Conor glances around and yeah, he’s pretty sure he can, it looks a lot like a grocery store.

“Well, go ahead.” Eamon shrugs and Conor does, flitting around and grabbing things off shelves and from cupboards. It is a very oddly organized store in a space that is most likely too small for it. Eventually, though, Conor has everything he needs and has set everything on the counter.

“I can’t believe you have papayas here.” Conor shakes his head, smiling. “I would’ve assumed that small towns don’t get to have papayas. Is that a weird thing to assume?”

“Not at all.” Eamon answers. “You’re not… Buying any of them are you?”

“Hm? Oh, no, I hate papayas.” Conor admits. "They're just slimy and gross."

“Okay, good.” Eamon says, strangely relieved, slipping Conor’s groceries into reusable bags. “Alright, well, you can go now.”

“I have to pay, don’t I?” Conor laughs, thinking Eamon just forgot about the money part of this transaction.

“Oh, it’s fine, don’t worry about it. You can pay next time.” Eamon reassures him. “But bring back your bags, those things are scarce.”

Conor starts shopping at Eamon’s store more. It’s logical, really, because Eamon’s store is the only one in town. He never forgets his bags and, strangely, he never pays. He doesn’t want to bring it up, doesn’t want to question it, he’s learned his lesson about questions.

Also, though, no one in the town eats papayas. The woman on the porch in her rocking chair told him so. Nobody, Conor is sure of it, and yet, every Tuesday, the papayas are gone. Wednesday, they’re back. It’s like clockwork and Conor doesn’t ask Eamon about it.

Eamon and he, well, they become friends. Maybe it’s because Conor’s fresh fruit disappears the days after he buys it and he has to go back to the store and buy more and then try to eat it all in one day, but he can’t because he buys too much, so back he goes. There’s not really a downside, his fruit is gone, sure, but Eamon doesn’t charge him (Conor doesn’t think that Eamon charges anyone) and they get to see each other just about every day.

And it’s just nice to have someone else in the town who is normal. Conor wasn’t sure at first, thought maybe was hiding shark’s teeth behind his lips like the little girl, was a hundred and seventy three years old, could breathe under water, had something that would set him apart somewhere else, but made him blend in in this small town. But Conor can never find anything and he relishes in the fact that Eamon is so run of the mill. Well, not run of the mill as a bad thing, not that Eamon’s bland, he tells great stories. Run of the mill as in he doesn’t levitate or move things with his mind or continuously pull cloth from his fingertips like a magician’s trick.

Having someone that’s like Conor, not like everyone else, it’s comforting. Reassuring. They become fast friends.

That’s how Conor finds Eamon in his kitchen, sitting on his counter and peeling an orange with his fingernails while Conor cooks vegetables in a skillet.

“Your fruit disappears?” Eamon laughs, incredulous, like it’s an insane claim, like Eamon has forgotten where they both live.

“Yeah? It’s not that strange honestly, compared to some other things.” Conor points out and Eamon shrugs, relenting.

“It’s still weird.” Eamon says, setting down the fully peeled orange next to him.

“Yeah.” Conor agrees, nodding. “I’ve just decided not to question it. Like, that’s a good philosophy for living here, I think. I mean, you’d know better than me, you’ve been here for how long?”

“Years, I’m not sure how many though.” Eamon clicks his tongue. “I don’t think time exists here. At least, not in the way in does everywhere else. Bury’s a strange town, Conor, a strange, strange town.” Conor has no argument to make.

They eat, they laugh, Conor’s pouring them glasses of red grape juice because the one thing Eamon’s store doesn’t sell is alcohol, and then Eamon takes the bottle of juice from his hands, sets it down on the table, and kisses Conor.

Conor isn’t sure of where he is, everything expands infinitely and collapses in on itself at the same time, he is so cold, he is so warm, he is nowhere and everywhere and he is a part of everything and he will never be put together again because how, how, how is he supposed to get the rest of himself back when he is everything? He is bigger than himself, he is smaller than himself, he is infinite, infinitesimal, expanding, contracting, breathing-

Reality snaps back when Eamon leans back and Conor is staring at him, unblinking, breath coming quickly.

“Are- are you okay?” Eamon asks, looking normal.

“You’re not like me, are you?” Conor returns, not accusing, not judging, it’s just unexpected and if Conor just felt what Eamon feels all the time then…

“No. No, I’m not.” Eamon nearly sounds embarrassed, looking down at the table. “Sorry, I don’t, uh, I thought maybe that would happen, but I wasn’t sure and it’s not like I’ve had the opportunity to try it out before.”

“What are you?” Conor’s voice is barely a whisper, words forming on the lightest of his breaths. He is in reverence. Eamon hesitates.

“I’m not sure.” He admits, folding his hands together. “I’ve talked to a few people about it, they all think I’m a black hole. Or, well, I’m not a black hole, but they think maybe I have the properties of one. Or maybe I am not a black hole, but there is one in me and by extension, I am a black hole. I don’t know. It’s weird.”

“That’s so cool.” Conor says and Eamon laughs, a short, sharp laugh. “Why are you laughing?”

“Because once you tell someone that you have a black hole inside of you, you wouldn’t expect them to be like ‘that’s rad, man’. You’d generally expect a little more freaking out.” Eamon points out.

“I guess, yeah.” Conor agrees. “But look at where we live, Eamon. It’s Bury. If something is normal here, it’s weird.”

“You’re not wrong, but this isn’t all cool and fun, you know. Things just kind of gravitate towards me. They become me, I think, I don’t know how, but they just… Yeah. I pick things up, pillows, coffee mugs, the fabric of reality…” Eamon trails off for just a second. “One time I got a thread of reality caught in me and now no one can go to the far East Side of town anymore because it just became part of me and created a hole in the universe. I had to cut it, otherwise I would’ve unraveled the whole town.”  

So, Eamon’s not normal and Conor is surprisingly more okay with that than he would’ve thought. Eamon is cute and nice, so who cares if he happens to be comprised of super dense matter?

They become something, Conor isn’t sure what, but they kiss. They hold hands. The old woman in her rocking chair congratulates him on landing Eamon, says that he’s a real catch, one of a kind. They all are in this town.

They’re sitting on Conor’s front porch one night. Clouds still cover the sky, no light comes through them, Bury is cut off from the sky, from the rest of the world, from the universe.

“Do you ever miss the stars?” Connor asks, resting his head on Eamon’s shoulder.

“Not really.” Eamon shakes his head, still looking upwards at the dark grey of the clouded night sky. “I mean, I kind of am one, so… I don’t think the stars would like me anyway.” Conor decides not to ask about what that means and they sit their in silence, looking up at the lacking sky that keeps watch over Bury.

Conor does love this town and Conor does love Eamon, but it’s a strange place full of strange people with strange traits. Conor never expected to stay here for this long, but he wakes up one morning next to Eamon and he realizes that it’s been a year since he moved to Bury and he doesn’t have a job and that he’s never paid any bill for his house and-

“Oh, shit.” Conor mutters in the quiet of the morning. The mornings are always silent, the birds don’t start singing until nine thirty-one. Eamon shifts beside Conor.

“What ‘s it?” Eamon slurs, still half asleep.

“I’ve been here for a year and I don’t have a job and I… Eamon, this is weird.” Conor stresses and Eamon exhales heavily, opens his eyes just enough so that he can see Conor.

“Conor, I get it. I didn’t get a job until I lived here for four years. The town… I think it realizes, I think it creates something for you. I just found a grocery store and somebody walked in and asked if I owned it and I just said yes.” Eamon recounts. “You will find something. But it’s not like money is a big deal here, anyways.”

“I just… It’s strange, being normal and being here. I don’t feel like I fit in.” Conor admits.

“Everyone loves you.” Eamon reminds him. “And besides, I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that for long.”

“What does that mean?” Conor asks before thinking about whether or not that is a question that should be asked in Bury. Usually those rules don’t apply to Eamon, but who knows to what extent that reaches?

“No one stays normal here. Like, I was normal when I moved here. Everyone else was too, but once you’re here for long enough and the town recognizes you as its own… Well, it changes you. Makes you right for here. It normally takes about a year and you’ve been here just that.” Eamon explains something that Conor should’ve realized, but never really thought about before.

“So, it just happens? And you can’t do anything about it?” For some reason, this makes Connor nervous, the finality of it all stresses him out. “What if you leave the town?”

“I don’t know, I’ve never tried. But I know people that have and when they come back, they’re still weird and they’re sadder and I don’t know why, but they are. No one leaves bury.” Eamon says it quite normality, but the finality that was stressing Conor out now seems damning.

Eamon falls back asleep not long after that, but Conor is still awake, lying, thinking.

Do his parents miss him?

Do they think about him?

Are they still alive?

These feelings, they stay pent up inside of him, hammering against his skin, desperate to get out. Some days he forgets about them, sometimes they consume his every waking moment and ever thought, awake and asleep. And after a long time, a long, long time with Eamon and Bury and all these people that he does not fit in with, he knows what he has to do.

Conor tries to leave.

When he does, it’s night and it’s dark and Eamon stayed late at the store and Conor has convinced himself that it’s okay, he’ll come back, he doesn’t hate Bury, he loves Eamon, he just wants to leave Bury so he can call his parents because his cell phone only works to call people in the town and he just wants to know if the world outside still exists, if his world outside still exists.

He runs down the streets and it’s dark and the streetlights flicker dimly above him. And when he runs by the old lady still sitting in her rocking chair, it starts to rain. Not just rain, storm. Lightning that never touched the ground and wind that makes his shirt flow and rain that soaks his face and soaks his hair and mixes with his tears as he sobs and as he runs.

It’s not Monday afternoon, it’s Thursday night, but Conor doesn’t realize and doesn’t care because he just keeps running and running and running until he’s in a part of town he doesn’t recognize and the buildings are tilted or maybe that’s just his vision, but everything looks wrong and he looks at the ground beneath his feet instead of what’s in front of him.

He trips and goes sprawling, expecting to land heavily on pavement, but he doesn’t. Conor realizes in a split second that this is the far East Side of town and he is falling into a tear in reality and he is falling into nothingness, oh God, what has he done? There is nothing in front of him, no depth, no shading, just a mass of nothing and Conor can’t tell if it’s grey or black or simply something that doesn’t exist and his mind can’t comprehend that.

And then there’s a hand on his collar, a hand on his arm, pulling him back from the abyss and back into the rain and the world becomes loud again with water on the streets and it is only then that Conor realizes that he hadn’t heard anything when he fell through the tear.

He looks up, through rain and tears, to see Eamon, whose glasses are covered in water and it is dripping from his hair and his chin. Conor hugs him, tightly, burying his face in Eamon’s soaked shirt.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Conor repeats over and over. He’s shaken, but who wouldn’t be? “I just wanted to call my parents, I wanted to see if they were okay and tell them I was okay. I love you too much to leave, Eamon, I was never going to leave. I just- I don’t fit in here, Eamon, and you do. I can’t do anything weird and you’re a black hole and you’re the exact opposite of reality, Eamon, you’re something that humans can’t comprehend and I’m… I’m still human. And I don’t belong in this town. I’ve been here for two years and I’m still normal…”

“Conor, you’re-” Eamon pauses, takes a breath. “You’re not normal, Conor. It’s raining.” Conor looks at Eamon, he doesn’t understand. “It’s not Monday, Conor. You made it rain. Hell, you made it storm.”

“Shit, I did, didn’t I?” Conor asks, looking up, amazed, this is because of him. “That’s… Wow. I did that. Wait, how did you find me?”

“You ran right past my shop.” Eamon chuckles. “Are you okay? Do you still want to leave? Because you can if you want to, I won’t be upset.”

“I don’t think I do.” Conor admits. “I love you, Eamon, I’m not unhappy here with you. I want to stay here with you forever.”

“Okay.” Eamon hugs Conor tightly. “You know, I’m sure we could find someone who could fix your phone to make calls to outside of town. You know that old woman in the rocking chair?” Conor nods. “She’s a genius when it comes to technology.”

“No kidding.” Conor laughs and Eamon claps him on the shoulder.

“Come on, storm boy, let’s go home.” They hold hands as the rain pours down around them and they make their way far away from the far East Side.

So, Conor has storms. Honestly, Conor thinks that it’s a welcome change from the seven minute rain on Mondays and he only gets better at controlling his powers after that.

The woman in the rocking chair has to change the talk she gives to newcomers about the weather.

“You see,” She’ll say, her chair creaking beneath her. “It used to only rain on Mondays. It still does, but it rains other times now too, and that’s all because of Conor. He controls it, the rain, I mean. You’ll know him if you see him, he can never quite get his hair to lie flat.”

She’s not wrong, after that first storm, his hair never lies completely flat, he tries, sure, but it always sticks up. Eamon tells him that it’s because of the lighting in his blood, kept just underneath his skin, like buzzing like static electricity.

Conor stays in Bury, in the strange town with the strange people with their own strange traits, and he is one of them. He never tries to leave again, he’s happy with Eamon and his disappearing fruit and the bills that never come and the way everything ceases to exist for just a split second when he and Eamon kiss.

His life in this town was never a future that he imagined himself in, but it is one that he would never leave, will never try to leave again. He is happy, he has Eamon, he has his storms. What more could he want?

**Author's Note:**

> this was just fun to write, honestly. as always, you find me @ taptaptapping.tumblr.com if you're interested! i hope you enjoyed reading this as much as i did writing it. if you've got questions about the story or about the universe this is set in or anything, just leave them down below and i'll answer them!


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